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Apparently some people think most or all crude petroleum isn't biological in origin? (hexbear.net)

submitted 6 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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So apparently a large-ish contingent of American reactionaries don't think crude oil is a finite resource. They believe the Earth regenerates it at a faster pace than it can be drilled, and this isn't a niche conspiracy theory either. I mentioned it off-hand at work after seeing a random tweet about it, then like 5 of my coworkers all nodded and agreed. One even used the term "abiotic oil."

Is this just cope or what? One of my coworkers literally said, "Well oil is like water, it goes through a cycle and gets replenished." Something about how crude oil is actually made through some kind of geological process, rather than decomposed algae/animal matter from millions of years ago. I think maybe there's evidence of abiotic hydrocarbon gasses existing from various chemical reactions with minerals, but I believe there's never been a convincing source of abiotic petroleum that couldn't also be explained as biological in origin.

They don't actually believe this, do they? It's just a thin kind of security blanket so they don't have to consider the reality of what fossil fuels truly are?

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[–] [email protected] 58 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (17 children)

The education system is fucked lol.

Even people who correctly understand that it's biological, think it comes from dinosaurs. It's like they heard the term 'fossil fuel' and just filled in the gaps.

A lot of our oil comes from long, long before dinosaurs existed. I believe it's mostly pressurized plankton and plants/diatoms/algae/seaweed?

But yeah, if I am to get a bit tin foil: even if the education system wasn't fucked, I think most people are suffering from some kind of severe trauma and/or propaganda induced psychosis. Also repeated COVID infections fucked up a lot of people's brains. Everyone is very sick and very depressed.

I've noticed previously smart people I know go through some weird cognitive decline in the last 5 years. It's actually really scary.

[–] [email protected] 44 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (11 children)

No lie I was literally taught in school about fossil fuels being from fossils, and it wasn't until more recently as an adult I learned the real science. We don't need reeducation for people...we need straight up education.

[–] [email protected] 45 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (10 children)

I might get in trouble for anti-religious sectarianism for saying this, but people underestimate how much damage US Christianity has done to peoples understanding of reality. I literally just tried to google about the origins of oil, and any of the websites on it that allowed comments were flooded with people commenting things like "WRONG: evolutionists want you to believe that oil is organic and finite so they can keep prices high! Why would organic material be found so far under the crust? Wake up!"

[–] [email protected] 14 points 6 months ago (1 children)

If the site policy is that protective of the intellectual influence of Evangelicalism, the site should be shut down because it has lost the plot.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

It's not, I'm just dumb lol

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago

I've seen some moments of HB consensus that "religion cannot be a reactionary social force ever, even theoretically, and you must be a reddit atheist idealist for suggesting so"

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